OFD Newsletter: March 23, 2020

A Message from the Office for Institutional Equity and Diversity

This unprecedented time calls for us to learn new skills and employ new strategies of connecting. It certainly heightens our need to be more inclusive and equitable, and doing so in a virtual space has its familiarities, but also it’s unique challenges.

We know that faculty are wanting to deliver their classes in the most inclusive way, creating a sense of belonging in the virtual landscape. Our human connectedness has never been more at the forefront.

NC State’s Office for Institutional Equity and Diversity and Office of Faculty Development want to provide you with resources.

Here are two such resources, and we will continue to strive to bring you more:

1. FREE WEBINAR: March 26, 2020 at 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. (Eastern)

Employing Equity-Minded and Culturally-Affirming Teaching and Learning Practices in Virtual Learning Communities

Register here

The unanticipated transition from face-to-face to online courses in response to COVID-19 presents a substantial challenge for many faculty, particularly those who have worked to create a teaching and learning environment that prioritizes equity and equity-mindedness. In this webinar, Drs. Frank Harris III and J. Luke Wood will present some salient trends and issues that complicate the experiences of diverse learners in online courses and propose equity-minded teaching and learning strategies for faculty teaching online courses.

This one hour webinar is free to the public and is hosted by the Center for Organizational Responsibility and Advancement (CORA).

2. WEBSITE RESOURCE
One issue that needs particular attention is that of equitable access to the learning environment. How can faculty and instructors ensure that all students have access to the materials they need to succeed in the course when the learning contexts are rapidly changing? Pedagogy that prioritizes inclusion–whether the courses are online, in-person or a combination of the two–asks us to consider how we can help all students succeed.

Rice University’s Center for Teaching Excellence Website

Faculty Peer Support Network

The newly created Faculty Peer Support Network is a group of NC State faculty willing and able to help other faculty with immediate needs related to developing continuity plans and moving instruction online.

If you would like to find a fellow faculty member who can support you, please see a list of these faculty, their areas of support, and their contact information:

Find a Faculty Member

If you would like to add your name to list of faculty who are willing to be contacted, please complete a few questions, here.

Changed to Webinar: Creating a hands-on data exploration activity for your students – no programming required!

• Monday, April 6, 2020
• 2:00-3:15 p.m.
• Webinar via Zoom
• Facilitator: Justin Post (Teaching Associate Professor and Director of Statistics Online Education)

Registration here

Have you wanted to get your students actively involved with data around a topic you teach? This workshop offers a tutorial on a programming free web-based software that will allow your students to summarize data numerically and graphically to investigate questions of interest. We’ll also discuss how to design an activity around this idea in order to support your students quantitative literacy ability. This activity could be used in a face-to-face, blended, or online course.

Faculty should bring a data set of interest for a course they teach to the workshop (excel, csv preferred) – a sample data set is also available for those interested but without a data set. Time will be allocated in the workshop in order to create the activity.